


Sunlight

by bocje_ce_ustu



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, Empath, Erik Being Hung Up On Charles While He Fucks Other People, Erik Has Feelings, Genosha, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Inspired by the trailer, Kinktober 2018, M/M, Not X-Men: Dark Phoenix Compliant, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Pre-X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Psionics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-28 11:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19392766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bocje_ce_ustu/pseuds/bocje_ce_ustu
Summary: In the quiet of the night Erik’s attention drifted to an almost invisible wave in the mutant’s dark hair, to the wide slope of shoulders descending into a pair of solid arms. Threadbare sweatpants outlined strong muscles underneath, and a bit of hip showed where the wrinkled t-shirt had rucked up on one side.It had been a long time since Erik had looked at another man like that.Or, Erik meeting Empath in Genosha.





	Sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the [Kinktober 2018 prompt "Bonds (Telepathic or Empathic)"](https://kinktober2018.tumblr.com/post/171107184776/kinktober-2018). Mind the tags for **implied dubcon**.  
> This is a slightly edited version of the Tumblr fic you can find [here](https://bocje-ce-ustu.tumblr.com/post/178959375162/its-time-i-face-my-one-true-kink-erik#notes).

Come to think of it, Erik hadn’t talked to him at all until Cybelle’s daughter had begun teething. Erik had offered to rock her until she either calmed down or cried herself to sleep, whatever came first – his nights of sleep were few and far between anyway, and the mother surely needed her rest – but that night it seemed it would be neither.

At least until the new mutant showed up, hair mussed and eyes half-drooped from sleep.

“I think I can help you with that,” he said when he was close enough to be heard over the child’s distressed cries. He gave Erik a tired smile as he stepped closer, arms outstretched.

“May I?”

Erik handed her over carefully, admiring the practiced ease with which the other man accommodated the child in the crook of his arm. He was much younger than him, he observed as the mutant rocked and cooed the screaming infant, and he had come alone. But he too had to have someone, a younger sibling or a child of his own, far away from that place, whom he had learnt to cradle like that.

“Physical pain is a bit of a hassle, you’d need a telepath to put it on hold effectively,” the man was saying slowly, eyes riveted on the baby’s chubby face. “What I _can_ do is zoom in on some other feeling to try and tune it out.”

The mutant’s eyes glowed golden for an instant, and the courtyard was suddenly and eerily silent. Then another shrill, resentful cry filled the air, but died out soon after, following another flash of gold. The man turned to Erik with a soft smile as the baby sniffled, her eyes already heavy-lidded.

In the quiet of the night Erik’s attention drifted from the gentle, rocking motion to an almost invisible wave in the mutant’s dark hair, to the wide slope of shoulders descending into a pair of solid arms. Threadbare sweatpants outlined strong muscles underneath, and a bit of hip showed where the wrinkled t-shirt had rucked up on one side.

It had been a long time since Erik had looked at another man like that, and it showed in the way he couldn’t help whipping his face in the opposite direction, skin aflame, when the mutant gave him a knowing smile.

“There. It should be all good now.” The baby was sleeping peacefully at last.

“Thank you.” Erik bit his lip hard, so he could focus on that instead of on how redder he could grow still, and opened his arms as the other mutant handed the baby back to him. “Can you do that to anyone? I’ve been having trouble sleeping.” Since the late 1930s, for all it mattered.

The man stared at him intensely, a little smile still tugging at the corners of his lips. “Sure. If that’s what you want.”

  
***

  
Erik didn’t get any sleep that night.

When he lazily rolled onto his back, the first rays of sunshine were peeking through the blinds. He was caught between the afterglow weighting down on his already exhausted body and the restless need to get on with a new day. Run, shower, inspecting the perimeter, reinforcing the fence on the woodland side, finding—

An arm looped around his midsection and tugged him back down onto the mattress.

“There’s plenty of time. You don’t need to run yourself to the ground.”

Erik tried to shake the arm off half-heartedly, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Don’t make me make you.”

Erik huffed but stayed where he was, even when the man released him with a cheeky grin and then stretched himself leisurely across the other half of the bed. Sunlight danced over a thinly etched web of silver scars.

“I’m Manuel, by the way.”

***

  
On another morning, he woke up to a show of golden skin bent over the wooden chest beside his bed. He could feel the warmth of gentle fingertips across polished metal, but not half the tension he’d expect from himself in such a situation.

“I’ve always been wondering…” Manuel turned around, contemplating the object in his hands with something akin to childish delight over a new, unpredicted discovery. “What does it do?”

Erik’s eyes followed Manuel’s fingers along the pointed arch on the front. “It’s a precaution,” he said, tight-lipped.

“Against the humans?”

Erik breathed in, weighted it up. Every word coming out of his mouth from that moment onwards would be a double-edge sword, a step away from the path he’d professed to follow. Every word would demand an answer he was too ashamed to give.

“Against a mutant.”

Manuel tore his eyes away from the helmet to stare at him, his head tilted to one side, but he didn’t look taken aback, or even curious. Assessing, rather, and somewhat amused. “A strange precaution for such a feeling,” he said, a sly smile flickering on his lips. “Is it him you don’t trust or yourself?”

Erik bristled at the assumption, so carelessly tossed between them and so damn right, but damn him if he’d let it show. He returned the smile, all teeth. “What makes you think it’s a him?”

Manuel gave a pointed onceover to their naked bodies. “You must have learnt your tricks somewhere.”

Those words rang true in more ways than one, though Manuel couldn’t possibly know that. For a moment, Erik could feel the chill of the ocean wrapped around his bones, his eyes blinded by the ship’s floodlights and the warm voice in his head fleshing out before him in a spluttering mess of dark hair and pasty skin.

Oh, yes, he’d learnt his tricks alright.

Manuel shook his head, setting the helmet back in its place and covering it with its cloth before closing the chest. “You’re disgustingly sweet. I’d be offended if I wasn’t used to it.”

A sudden sting of guilt wiped away every lingering trace of vexation from Erik’s mind. He offered the man an apologetic smile.

“Does this happen often?”

“To sleep with someone still hung up on an old flame?” Manuel chuckled. “You’d be shocked. But,” he shrugged “that’s a drop in the sea of emotion, and after a while you learn to let it wash over you if needs be.”

Try as it might, Erik’s mind went over to Charles once again, to all the confusion and mistrust and the arguments they’d had over the years every time Charles had sounded so sure he could understand whatever was going on inside Erik’s brain, whether he was welcome in there or not. Had it always been like that for him? Like the ebb and flow of the tide, relentless and inevitable?

And why was it so easy to talk about it now, when it had felt like an insurmountable barrier back then? Why was the need to know so pressing after all those years?

“How does it feel?” he found himself asking. “Having your gift.”

Manuel thought about it for a while, his dark gaze turning inward in reflection. Finally he set on, “Confusing. Illuminating, at times, but mostly chaotic. Loud. You get a constant, unabridged feed of the feelings all around you. Like, this surprised you. The loudness. But you also feel like something slotted into place, something old and bittersweet. And now you’re thinking about him again, aren’t you?”

Erik let out an helpless huff. “Guilty as charged. I must be terribly unflattering to be around, I’m sorry.”

“Oh, no, don’t be.” Manuel sat down beside him, on the edge of the bed. “I knew fully well what I was getting into when I came here.” _Here to this bed_ or _here to this place_ Erik didn’t know, but Manuel’s next words swept him away from that train of thought. “The thing is you, my dear, are a headful. Capable of the deepest lows, surely, but the highs…” Manuel gave a satisfied sigh. “You feel everything with such an intensity the room brims with it. It’s a joy to behold.”

Erik looked at him, in equal parts skeptical and fascinated. “And is it worth it? Standing all the lows for the highs?”

“Most of the time, yes.”

“And when it’s not?”

“Then I make do,” Manuel said simply, with a little private smile. “Just like everybody else.”

And when the sunlight hit his eyes, well, Erik felt he might have a point after all.  



End file.
